Long before that point, however, Otto begged to be allowed to continue and finish the work, which his brother agreed to, and, finally, the signal flag was renewed, by the greater part of an old hammock being lashed to the top of the tree.
But weeks and months passed away, and the flag continued to fly without attracting the attention of any one more important, or more powerful to deliver them, than the albatross and the wild sea-mew.
During this period the ingenuity and inventive powers of the party were taxed severely, for, being utterly destitute of tools of any kind, with the exception of the gully-knives before mentioned, they found it extremely difficult to fashion any sort of implement.
“If we had only an axe or a saw,” said Otto one morning, with a groan of despair, “what a difference it would make.”
“Isn’t there a proverb,” said Pauline, who at the time was busy making cordage while Otto was breaking sticks for the fire, “which says that we never know our mercies till we lose them?”
“Perhaps there is,” said Otto, “and if there isn’t, I don’t care. I don’t like proverbs, they always tell you in an owlishly wise sort o’ way what you know only too well, at a time when you’d rather not know it if possible. Now, if we only had an axe—ever so small—I would be able to fell trees and cut ’em up into big logs, instead of spending hours every day searching for dead branches and breaking them across my knee. It’s not a pleasant branch of our business, I can tell you.”
“But you have the variety of hunting,” said his sister, “and that, you know, is an agreeable as well as useful branch.”
“Humph! It’s not so agreeable as I used to think it would be, when one has to run after creatures that run faster than one’s-self, and one is obliged to use wooden spears, and slings, instead of guns. By the way, what a surprising, I may say awful, effect a well-slung stone has on the side of a little pig! I came upon a herd yesterday in the cane-brake, and, before they could get away, I slung a big stone at them, which caught the smallest of the squeakers fair in the side. The sudden squeal that followed the slap was so intense, that I thought the life had gone out of the creature in one agonising gush; but it hadn’t, so I slung another stone, which took it in the head and dropt it.”
“Poor thing! I wonder how you can be so cruel.”
“Cruel!” exclaimed Otto, “I don’t do it for pleasure, do I? Pigs and other things have got to be killed if we are to live.”